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A Better Florist founder Steve Feiner is a pretty convincing salesman. He fixes his intense gaze on you and gesticulates wildly as he describes why you should take his business seriously. Then, as you get it, he beams a wide, satisfied smile. It’s the same reaction he wants to inspire in his customers with his service. “Smiles guaranteed,” the website claims.

A Better Florist as a company name probably needs little explanation. The Singapore-based startup aims to provide just that: a better flower delivery service. You go on the site, pick a flower arrangement (there are currently four different ones available), choose a time and place for delivery, and add a quick note. The startup will deliver the bouquet and throw in a hand-written card for a personal touch. It will also confirm delivery with a personalized photo on the spot (its Instagram account is a good indication of what it tries to do).

Better than the competition

“Florists suck,” Steve tells me. “And they suck for a number of reasons.”

He says too many middlemen in the process drive the prices up and bring profit margins down. Also, flowers are usually already 10 to 16 days old before they get to customers’ hands. And finally, the overall experience is lacking. “These are primarily family-run businesses who haven’t really evolved since the advent of the telephone,” he adds.

That leads to experiences like a particularly unpleasant one involving an ex-girlfriend. “Two and a half years ago, it was her birthday, and I wanted to get her flowers,” Steve recalls. It was a floral disaster. “The flowers arrived a day after her birthday, they died shortly after, she was not happy. It was scarring to say the least.”

That was one of the contributing factors that spurred him on to found his company. “Giving flowers should be about sharing an emotion,” Steve says. So A Better Florist is trying to fix what’s wrong with flower delivery. The startup ships directly from flower farms in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands, and its flowers are only two days old, instead of 10. It also cuts out all the middlemen, so it can keep its prices about 20 percent lower than the competition.

“We fix the experience,” Steve says. “[We have] a mobile site that works, friendly customer service, order tracking.” One could argue these are the basics a business must take care of, but apparently there are those who ignore them – at their peril, he thinks. Pleasing the customer is his top goal at the moment, he tells me. His email address is front and center on the company’s website, and he does a lot of the deliveries personally, of course with a smile.

From SF to SG via Google

Steve first tried running his own startup back in college in the US, a kind of classifieds platform for local communities. Despite winning some competitions, nothing really came out of it. He went into consulting for another startup, and eventually joined Google in San Francisco to do ecommerce sales and business strategy. It was the big G that brought him to Singapore.

Once in Southeast Asia, the entrepreneurship dengue bit him again. He discovered that flowers were a particularly attractive space in ecommerce. He conducted customer and industry interviews and did some research to find out more.

So with all this in mind, Steve returned from his sabbatical to Google, only to resign and go off to found A Better Florist. “I enjoyed Google, it’s a wonderful place to work,” he says. “But I wanted to take a risk. The regret of not doing this would be insurmountable [for me].”

The thrill of trying out his idea was also the reason he stayed in Singapore. “Singapore’s been amazing to me,” he says. “If you want to do something transformational in this world, it’s here. The world is evolving here far faster than it is anywhere else. It’s got a long way to go, it’s still the Wild Wild West, but it’s cool to be in the Wild Wild West,” he laughs.

Data-driven smiles

A Better Florist currently has a team of four, with a fifth recruit coming on board. Steve says he’s fortunate in having a team behind him that knows exactly what the company needs, even if he’s not always sure how to go about it. “It’s been amazing to be able to just trust my team,” he says.

It’s still early days for the company, and no doubt it will need to think seriously about issues like logistics and capacity when it scales up and demand rises. “There’s going to be stuff that changes when 10 or 50 thousand people get on,” Steve says. “When you get on that level, you’re able to make more informed and optimized decisions. Right now we’re trying to bridge the gap [to that point].”

The startup makes sure to use data to inform its decisions, something that helps set it apart from competition. “We’ve done tons of customer interviews, tons of user experience testing,” Steve says. Even an initiative such as distributing advertising flyers for the service provides the company with information that allows it to optimize its offering.

The company is currently self-funded, with just a little external investment so far. Steve says the company’s goal at the moment is to grow 10 percent week-on-week, every week. The startup hopes to have perfected its product in Singapore by the end of the year, and it will also look toward expanding to Kuala Lumpur.

But whatever happens, Steve is sticking to his key mantra: “We want to make our users happy, we won’t sacrifice that,” he says. “At the end of the day, I choose to take action. I’m not searching for my next meal tonight, I have the opportunity to do this, and I feel fortunate for it. I’m not gonna waste that. I might as well take my chance,” he adds, flashing his winning smile.

A Better Florist provides same day delivery for fresh, hand-crafted flowers. Designed by our professional florist, each bouquet is stunning and long-lasting. We make it easy to send love to the people you love. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get more promo codes and discounts off blooms!

A bouquet of flowers have had a timeless ability to convey so many different types of emotions like: ‘I love you’, ‘Congratulations!’ or ‘I’m sorry’. They have a magical way of changing a mood.

Florists are still the artisans making the flowers but the mobile on-demand era has changed the way they get ordered and delivered. With a goal to make a ‘thousand smiles a day’, a startup called A Better Florist is changing the florist market in Southeast Asia.

Founder Steve Feiner was motivated to start the business after an embarrassing and frustrating experience in the U.S. He ordered flowers for a special birthday, but they arrived the day after. He questioned himself, “How is this okay? How can companies still get away with it?” Other friends he talked to had similar problems. Then he saw an opportunity to do it better.

Feiner moved to Singapore with GoogleGOOGL -0.29% but left to start A Better Florist. Inside Google he could see that flowers were a very popular vertical. Search volumes were high and people spent a lot of money on ads. But he saw that the market was also fragmented, run by many family businesses and they were “leaving money on the table” by not always making people happy.

For someone looking to try it out, it works like this: You pick a bouquet from a limited selection of four types from any device, choose a delivery date, pay and it gets delivered on time for free. If you need it right away, the whole checkout process takes 2 minutes and the flowers are delivered within 90 minutes. Currently the service is only available in Singapore, although they have plans to expand into Kuala Lumpur soon.

All the flowers are sourced fresh from the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. A mother of two makes sure they are all perfect before sending them to the office in Singapore, where they are handled by a professional local florist.

Feiner says his service is better for four main reasons: First, their flowers last twice as long since their only two days; second, the price is 20-30% cheaper because they bypass wholesalers; third, the limited curated selection of beautiful bouquets makes the decision easier and lastly, amazing customer experience.

Feiner is proud of all the happy customers who praise his company’s dedication.“If you blow away a customer and create that WOW moment, that’s all that matters. Everything else will follow. I feel blessed to make so many people smile. I get to make people smile for a living,” said Feiner.

In Silicon Valley, Y Combinator backed BloomThat raised an additional $5.5 million earlier this year. Now, the business offers adding gifts to your bouquet to impress even more.

A Better Florist provides same day delivery for fresh, hand-crafted flowers. We aim to be the best florist in Singapore. Each bouquet is stunning, long-lasting and handcrafted by our professional florists. We make it easy to send love to the people you love with our same day delivery. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get more promo codes and discounts off blooms!